Foster was reluctant to ask why Stretch was here-but he did.
“Name on the door tells the story. Palestine Central Airways. I thought of the name myself. You see, these guys here haven’t had too much experience running a first-class line, so they induced me to stay. First thing I told ‘em … boys, I said … if you want a first class operation, you have to have a first-class chief pilot and I got the best goddam chief pilot any goddam airline …”
“I’ll see you around,” Foster said, standing up quickly.
“What’s the fire?”
“I’m on my way to Paris.”
“I got a deal for you.”
“Not interested.”
“Do me the courtesy of listening.”
“I’ll listen but I’m not buying. I’m going to Paris if I got to swim there.”
“Here’s the pitch. Like I said, everybody around here is
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a Jew. They bought out the old Arctic Circle so’s they could haul more Jews in. Man, I hear they got them stashed everywhere in the world, and they all want in. All we got to do is bring the bodies in. Can’t you see it? Every load a pay load. Cash on the line … per head. This is dream stuff, Tex boy. Stick with me and you’ll be bathing in it. You know me, Tex … I ain’t no hog.” >
“I know what I’ll be bathing in. I’ll drop you a card from Rio D.”
“O.K., Foster … been nice knowing you.”
“Now, don’t get mad, Stretch.”
“Who’s mad, who’s mad?”
“We’ve had our times in Nome.”
“Sure … sure … swell times. I froze my butt off.”
“Well, put her there,” Foster said. Stretch shook bis hand halfheartedly.
“Now, what’s the matter, Stretch? You act like I’m putting a knife in your ribs.”
“Going to level with you, Foster. I’m in trouble. We got a hot flash that a bunch of these Jews are sitting around and waiting to be picked up at a place called Aden. I had some pilots but they chickened out on me.”
“That’s tough titty. You don’t con me. I’m going to Paris.”
“Sure,” Stretch said. “Go to Paris. If I was you I’d go too. I don’t blame you. Those other pilots ran like striped apes when they heard there was danger of the Arabs firing on them.”
Foster was on his way out. He stopped and turned around.
“You’re right, Foster. No use getting your brains blown out. This is a real rough run … even rougher than flying the Hump or running dynamite over the Andes.”
Foster J. MacWilliams licked his lips. Stretch went into some more dramatics but he knew that the bait had been swallowed.
“Tell you what I’m gonna, Stretch. I’ll make this run for you just to help you off a spot. By the time I’m back you’d better gotten your hooks on some pilots. Just one run. Now where the hell is this Aden?”
“Damned if I know.”
“Well, let’s get a map and look for it.”
As Foster J. MacWilliams, American tramp pilot for Palestine Central, nee Arctic Circle, took off from Lydda airdrome he opened a twentieth-century fantasy out of the pages of the Arabian Nights.
He flew toward the British protectorate of Aden at the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula, moving right down the Red Sea.
The story actually, began three thousand years before 560
Foster’s time in ancient Sheba. In the time of the Queen of Sheba, the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula was a land of richness. The people had learned the art of constructing spillways and dams and cisterns to trap and conserve water and, with it, created a garden.
After the Queen of Sheba had made her visit to Solomon, some of Solomon’s people left Israel to go to Sheba to establish trade routes through the desert, along the Red Sea, and begin a colony. These Jews came to Sheba in Biblical times, hundreds of years before even the fall of the First Great Temple.
For centuries the Jews in Sheba prospered. They colonized well with their own villages; they integrated into the complexities of tribal life. They became leaders of the court and the most prominent of citizens. .
Then came the horrible years when the sands slowly and cancerously ate away the fertile land; the wadis dried and the rains disappeared into parched earth. Man and beast wilted and withered under the unmerciful sun, and the fight to conquer thirst was the fight for life itself. Fruitful Sheba and the neighboring states broke up into jealous and hate-filled tribes which warred upon each other constantly.
When Islam first swept the world, the Jews of the ancient religion were given respect and freedom in their ways. Mohammed himself wrote the laws, which all Moslems were to follow, prescribing the kindly treatment of Jews.
This equality of the Jews was short-lived. As in all Moslem lands, all citizens other than Moslems became scorned as infidels. In their own way the Arabs had grudging respect for the Jews, and in their own way granted them a reasonable amount of tolerance. Arab massacres of Jews were never the calculated genocide of Europe, but rather the flaring of a sudden spark of violence. The Arabs had become too busy plotting against each other to be much concerned with the docile little Jews in the land now known as Yemen; centuries of suppression had removed any warlike qualities.
As in all Arab lands, these Jews lived as second-class citizens. There were the usual repressive laws, unequal taxation, persecutions, and denial of the civil rights given to Moslems. The degree of persecution varied with the particular ruler in the particular area.
A standing rule forbade Jews’ raising their voices before a Moslem, building a house higher than a Moslem, touching a Moslem, or passing a Moslem on the right side. A Jew must not ride a camel, for the mount would put his head higher than a Moslem’s. In a land where the camel was the chief mode of transportation, this was a severity. Jews Metl in mellahs, Oriental versions of ghettos.
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The world moved on and progressed. Time stood still in Yemen. It remained as primitive as the jungle and as remote and inaccessible as Nepal or Outer Mongolia. No hospital existed in Yemen, no school or newspaper or printing press or radio or telephone or highway.
It was a land of desert and vicious mountains linked only by the paths of camel caravans. Hidden cities i nestled in twelve-thousand-foot ranges surrounded by hundreds of thousands of square miles of complete waste. Illiteracy was nearly a hundred per cent. Backward, forsaken, wild and uncharted, some of its boundaries were never defined.
Yemen was ruled by an Imam, a relative of Mohammed, and the personal representative of Allah, the Merciful, the All-Compassionate. The Imam of Yemen was an absolute ruler. He controlled the life of every subject. He controlled the gold and the single crop of coffee. He answered to no cabinet. He provided no civil or social services. He held power by dexterously balancing tribal strength, being continually occupied in crushing one tribe or aiding another among the hot desert feuds ^nd the raging jealousies. He kept hostile tribes under control by kidnaping their people and holding them as hostages. He kept hundreds of slaves. He sat in cross-legged pompousness and dispensed justice according to his whim, ordering the noses of prostitutes cut off and the hands of thieves amputated. He scorned civilization and did all in his power to keep it from penetrating his kingdom, although he was forced to yield occasionally from fear of his powerful Saudi Arabian neighbor to the north who dabbled in international intrigue.
Part of the Imam’s fear of civilization derived from civilization’s desire to subjugate his land. Despite its remoteness it was located in a corner of the world that formed a gateway to the Orient through the Red Sea. Time and again Yemen became a battlefield as colonial expansionists set covetous eyes on it.
The Imam traditionally assumed the role of benevolent despot toward the Jews. So long as the Jews remained subservient they were given some protection. The Imam was cautious: the Jews were the finest artisans and craftsmen of the land. Their generations passed down the arts of silversmith-ing, jewelry making, minting, leatherwork, carpentry, shoe-making, and a hundred other trades which most Arabs had not mastered. The latter either farmed or comprised the roving Bedouin bands. Thus skill brought the Jews some measure of protection.